North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Steve <sdw12986@aol.com>]

Anthony Curcio wrote:
> Jim writes:
>
>  
>
> Is there a portable vacuum that has enough suction to suck up a
>
> Yellow Jacket in flight?  The ones I've tried  aren't powerful enough to
>
> accomplish the task.
>
>  
>
> I want to add a word of caution ( maybe over cautious) about vacuuming 
> Hornets. Sometimes depending on the length of hose, velocity of the 
> suction, or just some tough Hornets, they don’t die in the vacuum and 
> will reemerge. People, ( No one from nafex) it has been told, in an 
> attempt to ensure the buzzers stay in place, squirt a little aerosol 
> hornet spray into their vacuum. Given the right spray and a little spark 
> from the vac motor, this can ruin your whole day.
>
> Anthony Curcio

I've written, here, about this before. I use a shop vac (wet vac) to 
clean out yellow jacket nests. An inch of soapy water inside the wet 
vac, the end of the hose goes near the opening of the nest and enough 
extension cord to get to the nest. On a warm, sunny day when there is 
lots of activity, you can catch most of them in a very short time.

I would be concerned about using a small hand held vacuum to catch 
hornets. They have no sense of humor about projects like this.  :-)

I suppose the old rechargeable dust busters might catch them but I would 
have a container of soapy water in the other hand and not turn the unit 
off until a moment before I submerged the end of the thing in the water. 
And then.... well... I'm not sure what to do with it after that!

Steve